Week 40 John 19
John says that at the moment when Jesus died he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus is a special case but my sense is that this process might be generally true for everyone. The end of life comes. My physical body dies. I give-up my spirit.
If John is saying that – by design & constitution – people have both a) a body and b) a spirit then that’s a significant thing to know and it gives me something to think about.
First of all I need to decide whether I actually believe that I’m just my physical body or whether I have a spirit too.
Then if I do think I’m a body-spirit binary I have to decide what to do about my spirit. (I’m fully tuned-in to my physical humanness – body is pretty definitive and it’s impossible to disregard. But spirit is a trickier department to put-my-finger-on.)
Of course it’s possible that Jesus was absolutely unique. The only human being to ever have a spirit – and that when he gave up his spirit it was a one-off situation. If that’s the case I don’t need to be too concerned. But if – in a constitutional way – I’m made up of two-parts then I’ve got something to chew on because if I have a spirit that’ll get given-up when I die then the question is: what do I do with it in the meantime?
Note: quote from John 19:30 (ESV). September reading report: 86% completed.